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Research and policy: a troubled relationship?
Carmen Munteanu - Communications Coordinator
3 March 2014
There is apparently a strong relationship between research and policy. Politicians promote in their discourse the need for a scientific basis for policies, and many of the central public institutions order and fund studies and research with the declared aim to optimize the political decision on the matters under discussion. However in real life research influences policies to a much smaller extent than it would be expected. There is an increasing interest for research on migration in Europe and at European Union level, but this does not always reflect in the policies adopted. The cases of policy adjustment or change as a result of recommendations in research reports are rare.
Andrew Geddes, Policy professor at the University of Sheffield, raises several questions on the relationship between research and policy in an article published on the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) blog. What are the relationships between researchers and policy-makers at EU level? How do policy-makers gather and process information? What happens with all this information after all? Is it used to generate change?
According to Andrew Geddes, the dialogue between the producers of knowledge about migration (researchers) and the users of this knowledge (particularly EU institutions and the member states) is encouraged at EU level. In addition the role of experts in supporting EU officials is essential for synthesising and understanding the multitude of information produced by research. However the presentation form and language (too theoretical) of the research results, as well as their content, often too critical towards existing policies, are difficult to accept by decision makers. Therefore knowledge from research is not necessarily used by politicians to underlie policies, but rather as a source of legitimacy and a means of debating (or substantiating) political preferences and decisions already made, but which are not very popular. A simple approach to the relationship between research and policy is not sufficient. Research may influence policy, but it is not simply a basis for issuing policies.
Source: Migration Policy Center
Andrew Geddes, Policy professor at the University of Sheffield, raises several questions on the relationship between research and policy in an article published on the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) blog. What are the relationships between researchers and policy-makers at EU level? How do policy-makers gather and process information? What happens with all this information after all? Is it used to generate change?
According to Andrew Geddes, the dialogue between the producers of knowledge about migration (researchers) and the users of this knowledge (particularly EU institutions and the member states) is encouraged at EU level. In addition the role of experts in supporting EU officials is essential for synthesising and understanding the multitude of information produced by research. However the presentation form and language (too theoretical) of the research results, as well as their content, often too critical towards existing policies, are difficult to accept by decision makers. Therefore knowledge from research is not necessarily used by politicians to underlie policies, but rather as a source of legitimacy and a means of debating (or substantiating) political preferences and decisions already made, but which are not very popular. A simple approach to the relationship between research and policy is not sufficient. Research may influence policy, but it is not simply a basis for issuing policies.
Source: Migration Policy Center
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